Radio Script #1296

Little Talks on Common Things
January 10, 1982

When, earlier this season, I completed four broadcasts based on the papers of Dr. Moses Appleton recently acquired by the Waterville Historicai Society, I had not expected to return to that subject soon. But I now find among those papers a few items not yet mentioned that are of such importance that I want to put them on record as part of this program.

An earlier program has told about the ferry that ran between Waterville and Winslow before the construction of Ticonic Bridge in 1825, and had to be used several times afterward when freshets washed out the bridge. After Moses Appleton’s death in 1849, his son Samuel was a leading proprietor in Ticonic Bridge. In May 1857 Samuel received this letter from Peleg Sprague in Boston.

“I am a stockholder in Ticonic Bridge and I wish to determine what it is in my interest to do. Is is best to rebuild, and at what expense? What is the danger from flood and fire, and what is fair insurance against those risks? What can be realized from salvaged materials from the old bridge?

“I am informed that the last legislature granted an extension of the right to take tolls for thirty years on the same terms as in 1833. I desire your opinion on my questions, as you are on the spot and have better knowledge of the situation than I. I believe I am now the largest stockholder and I may prefer to sell part or all of my shares. I shall be guided by your advice. Tell me what my shares would bring.”

A week later in 1857 Sprague wrote again to Samuel Appleton .

“I shall not be able to attend the meeting of stockholders next week. I am so far away from Waterville and am so advanced in age that I am not satisfied that it would be in my interest to rebuild the bridge, although I suppose it would benefit those who live near it. I have therefore authorized Edwin Noyes to vote my shares against rebuilding. You say my shares would now bring from $10 to $20 each. I am willing to split the difference and take $15. I own 25 shares”

Evidently someone bought Sprague’s shares, because in 1888 the bridge was rebuilt and opened again to traffic. Most of the letters in the Appleton collection were written to someone in the family. Very few are copies of letters written by any of the Appletons. One conspicuous exception is a letter that Samuel wrote to Sprague during the controversy about rebuilding the bridge in 1857. It said:

“The Ticonic Bridge, rebuilt in 1835, was 560 feet long supported by three trestles and an abutment at each end. There is now left standing in good order 176 feet, about a third of the entire length. There has gone down the river 384 feet of bridge, a large part of which was secured at Gardiner and Hallowell, but it is found to be not much broken up and is valuable for rebuilding, in fact quite as useful as new timber.

“The old bridge cost a bit more than $12,000. about $25 a foot. Both labor and material are as cheap now as they were in 1835, and I see no reason why the 384 feet cannot be rebuilt for about $9,000. The value of salvaged material cannot be less than $1,350, making the net cost of repair about $7,650. For the past few years dividends have averaged $2.50 per share. and I have no doubt the bridge will pay quite as well in the future. For the first ten years after rebuilding, expense of repair should be very low. Premium for insurance against flood and fire is now one percent of valuation.”

It was in the 1830’s that steam began to replace sail on the Kennebec. Preserved among the Appleton papers is one that shows the Doctor’s interest in steam. He owned two shares in what was called the Steamboat Branch of the Waterville, Gardiner and Boston Packet Company.

Now for a bit more on Ticonic Bridge. The original structure, opened in 1826, was washed out in the great flood of 1832, the biggest for more than 100 years until 1936. The next year Moses Appleton received from a man in Warren, Maine, information about Lang’s Patented Bridge, which the writer declared superior to any other. The man said the Lang bridge was so constructed as to be much less expensive to build and much less subject to decay. Evidently Appleton pursued the matter, because in November, 1833 he received the following letter from Boston:

“The bearer, Isaac Davis, is a gentleman from Northampton, Mass. He is an architect of much experience in bridge building. I have induced him to call at Waterville and examine the site of your bridge with a view to rebuilding it. If you and he can come to an agreement, I have told him the proprietors will pay for his services at the rate of $3 a day and expenses for the visit, unless you make a contract with him, in which case the visit will be at his own expense. If the bridge can be made abundantly safe on the old site, I have no objection to its being rebuilt there. Truly yours, Thomas A. Hill.”

In the Appleton collection are numerous account books dealing with his medical practice. One for year 1835 contains a number of interesting items. He charged John Clarke 50 cents for a visit and pills. The charge was one dollar for visiting and bleeding John Flynn. But all the time the doctor has other sources of income. He charged Susan Wheeler $4.50 for two oak logs, Stephen Tozer three shillings for half a bushel of corn, and Samuel Higgins three shillings for half a day’s use of Appleton’s oxen. One of the doctor’s sidelines was to secure payment to veterans of the Revolution for pensions authorized by Congress. For about a dozen at $48 each he got the agent’s fee of $1.25 apiece.

In 1830 Moses Appleton was one of very few men in all Kennebec County who owned a carriage, then called a chaise. One day in 1833 he rented horse and chaise to William Reed for three shillings.

In the last few minutes we have several times mentioned a charge of three shillings. That was the equivalent of 50 cents. The account book shows that Dr. Appleton made many kinds of deals.

In 184~ he agreed to let Thomas Richardson of Winslow have a yoke of oxen for three months, provided Richardson kept them well shod and well fed, and also repaired Appleton’s fences. He agreed to pay $1.50 for two days haying provided Timothy Heywood would take his pay in salmon. He declared Timothy’s son James would not again be rented use of the chaise because he had returned it dirty.

The doctor saved money by regularly employing teenagers at a reduced rate from adult pay; 50 cents a day. One of his deals was with James Evans, to repair the fence on Appleton’s Emerson Street farm, in return for which Evans could pasture his horse on Appleton land for the summer. But if the horse got out and caused any damage;, Evans would be responsible. But if all went well, at the end of the summer the doctor would pay Evans 12 shillings in addition to the pasturage.

In 1845 the doctor made a record of this deal. “I leased to Ellis Davis, who lives in my house beyond mile brook, one cow, four years old, red color, to be kept in my pasture near the house, for which Davis will pay me $10 – $5 on delivery of the cow, and $5 within the year. The calf, when killed, is to be divided between us. Davis may obtain possession of the cow by paying me $16 anytime within two weeks”

The papers contain several mentions of the Appleton pews in the Baptist Church. In 1847 he recorded: “Settled with John Wingate for use, during the past two years, of my pew in the Baptist Church, but told him that if he wished to continue use of it, he must pay me thirty shillings a year.”

That was probably a deal in Appleton’s favor. By 1850 the sale value of pews in that church had become badly depressed, although their value would rise later. That $5 rental Appleton demanded from Wingate was probably not a lot more than the pew would then have sold for.

As Justice of the Peace, it was Appleton’s job frequently to pass judgment on offenders of the town by laws, what today we call city ordinances. In 1832 he fined William Gilman one dollar for leaving a big log in the street near Gilman’s house, thus partially obstructing the street for more than a week. He fined Zebulon Sawyer a dollar for leaving a large mast in the road. When Sawyer still failed to remove it, Appleton haled him in again, and this time fined Sawyer $5.

One of the account books lists prices at Appleton’s pharmacy on Silver Street. Quantities are not stated, but arsenic was 50 cents, alum 25, castor oil 34, calumel 5 cents, and sulphur 10 cents. Smelling salts were 25 cents, and a product called Lee’s Pills went for 13 cents. Coat plaster was 19 cents. Among the pharmacy items the doctor recorded as receiving from a Boston wholesaler were pill boxes, glass bottles, cork stoppers, powder wrappers.

One of Dr. Appleton’s many community ventures was in the town’s first modest water supply beyond household wells. That was in 1847 when he was one of the original owners of the Waterville Aqueduct Company. It laid a pipeline from springs on the present site of the American Legion Building down Main Street as far as Castonguay Square. The doctor bought one share in the company for $40. Seven years later, that tiny water line had 18 customers on Main Street, who paid total rentals of $36 a year.

And with that reference to Waterville’s first municipal water line, we say. goodbye until next week.

Year: 1982